


my body is a vessel of love

by winluvr



Series: THIS IS OUR NEW RELIGION. [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Character Study, Demon x Priest AU, Introspection, M/M, Miya Atsumu is a hot priest, Mutual Pining, tender romance between a priest and a demon but make it sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winluvr/pseuds/winluvr
Summary: How do you clearly define the thresholds of your devotion to one thing?
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Kita Shinsuke
Series: THIS IS OUR NEW RELIGION. [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966375
Kudos: 10





	my body is a vessel of love

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. demon-priest atsukita concept is from saelove_0604 on twitter :) all credits to them  
> 2\. this was supposed to be part of a full-length 10k fic but i couldn't get some of the scenes done... so i will split it up into three or more fics  
> 3\. these works are more like distant successors of one another rather than siblings... so i might rearrange them someday to fit my liking... :)  
> 4\. i might also rework this into a sakuatsu work because i couldn't decide which fitted it better.

Demons, as humans would often describe them, are godless beings through and through. Red-tailed, black-winged and temptingly dressed, the wretched beings would pounce at the littlest hint of a mortal falling into the arms of their temptation. Their lined eyes are black, the darkest shade a mortal would ever see, pure black like a shadow in the night and filled with the sins of the countless human boys they have corrupted in their lifetime. They have fangs such as that of a vampire that recoil back into their wicked mouth in order not to be seen by unwilling witnesses. These demons lurk among us like thieves who would try so hard to hide themselves from view, sitting at the edge of a stained glass window of a cathedral, in the foot of our beds in the silence of the night, in the darkest of our nightmares where there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Demons are unworthy of our love— because they have failed us. They exist not to worship, nor to be worshipped, rather to be loathed, to be condemned like the immoral beings they are.

Although no one expected it from someone like him who worked all his life and devoted his time to one thing and only one thing, Kita Shinsuke was reincarnated as a demon, chained to the truth of his existence no matter how hard he tried to change himself, write away his history and forget the sins he has committed in life. Still, his sins have chained him to an unholy life filled with guilt, filled with yearning for something better that wouldn’t burn his skin off. He misses the church that he was never allowed to step inside for fear of dying under the hands of a priest equipped with a stake or a sprinkle of holy water from an altar-boy. It is so easy to die, to be killed and abolished from the face of the earth by the hands of the human beings who called themselves the new disciples of the lord. In loving sacrifice, however, Shinsuke willed himself to step inside the cathedral, ignoring how much the saints’ portraits burned him.

Priests, however, are the epitome of a quiet devotion to one thing. A priest, golden-haired and angel-eyed, lives in the outskirts of Hyogo prefecture, where there are verdant greenery and beautiful sights for tourists to see. Father Atsumu had first stepped foot inside a parish when he was little, barely five years old with brown hair and an infantile naivete, his hand still held by his mother so she could lead the way. By the time he turned eleven, he heard it. He had always dreamed of hearing it when he learned that Osamu, his twin brother, had his calling two years ago. “Perhaps the older child’s faith is not quite as strong,” the priest told his mother once. “Perhaps it would take some time before he could heed the calling of the Lord. I ask you to be patient, my child, and wait for him.” At his young age of his ripe twenties, Atsumu was named a priest, authorized to administer all seven sacraments and preach gospels.

Father Atsumu believes only in his devotion to one lord, one god. In the morning, the priest devotes his time to preparing his clothes for the afternoon services, memorizing and reciting his prayers off a wooden clipboard, directing the lectors and the choir. All of his duties are bound to one thing: his faith, his utter commitment to something he cannot possibly see, to something he cannot possibly touch. The gates of heaven have always been waiting for him, he knows this one thing better than anyone. He can almost see it so clearly— the pearly white clouds, the golden-lined gates of the kingdom of his lord, the white-frocked man welcoming him inside.

But how do you clearly define the thresholds of your devotion to one thing? One lonely evening, the priest finds himself alone in the cathedral once his higher-ups have gone to their quarters. With a sigh, he wipes off the beads forming on his forehead and lingers along the wooden pews of his beloved church. A shiver creeps up his spine as he looks back and someone— something is sitting on the edge of the stained glass window. His hands fly up to his chest in horror, but not in disgust, for our priest is an all-loving man. 

Father Atsumu has heard out so many confessions within the enclosed stall that barely anything would shock him anymore. He would be willing to accept anyone's presence, perhaps even the demon sitting in front of him, dressed in only a white robe and a pair of shorts, his long white feet bare but never filthy. Still— the priest has been told countless tales of how bishops in his town had been possessed by a demon of some sort. He observes the demon sitting at the windowsill, the windowsill that he has grown to love and cherish, and feels almost afraid for the first time in such a long time. As he clutches the mauve beads around his sweat-slicked neck, Father Atsumu murmurs prayers to all types of saints, the last one invoking his faceless god himself. Lord, have mercy. He whispers, only ever whispers, for the demon to stay back, for him to stay away, afraid of causing a commotion within the holy place.

“Stay back.” The priest himself steps back from the demon, one slow and small foot step by one foot step, his hands trembling as he slowly lets go of the rosary that brought him comfort. He knows that he is outnumbered in this situation, a weak prey falling to the arms of the lion. “Stay back, I beg of you. Please— please don’t touch me.” The demon tries to bring a hand to his shoulder and he flinches away, feeling his skin burning under his chasuble.

The demon merely laughs at the priest, his voice intoxicating, and says in retaliation, “Come here.” The priest shakes his head, afraid of how the demon could burn his faith right off his holy hands, of how the spectre would not allow himself to be flicked away. This demon— this demon is different. The priest does not recognize the demon's wings, where the flaming tips curl golden and the ends turn an almost holy shade of white. He does not recognize the pale amber of his eyelids, the downy smell of his tattered clothing. How could something so wicked be so beautiful? An hour loving this creature would entail a lifetime of eternal damnation. Countless other men, men just as weak-willed as him, have fallen prey to his kind before and they had been subject to days and days spent in purgatory, begging for mercy. “Father, please, I won’t hurt you.”

“Stay back.” Father Atsumu takes one more step backwards as the demon manages to wind his around the priest's neck, tugging at the rosary that easily came off. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to have to hurt you.” The priest, near breathless under the demon’s presence, looks down at his hands. The demon's skin seems to be gradually turning copper-colored, the priest notes when he sees the flash of his wrist before it retreats back into his silken robe. This scene feels familiar, almost. The demon's name is at the tip of his tongue, but the priest could not possibly bear to say it, to have his reputation be tarnished in the slightest by letting the name come alive in the four corners of the cathedral. He could not bear to say it, to bring it to existence by saying, no longer whispering, the eight letters. He looks down on the demon's lacquered eyelids and his metal mouth and oh, how afraid he is. “Please don’t touch me. I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll do anything you want.”

“Come here. I need you here.” The demon's smile brightens when the priest's resolve seems to weaken. Demons find their strength in the mortals' show of weakness. Humans are ever so easily sucked into temptation, by the slightest flap of a demon's flaming wings, the slightest touch of a demon's cruel fingers. “I need you here, Father.” It is so easy to unravel them, to make them come undone even inside their sanctuary, under the gazes of a thousand saints.

Father Atsumu takes one step closer to the windowsill where the history of his sins could be displayed once he lets temptation take over him, allowing himself to be cornered by the demon. “Your faith is ever so weak, Father.” The demon smiles sweetly, his hand cupping Father Atsumu’s cheek, tweaking the lobe of his ear. “It’s always, always been so weak. How could you ever have gotten into the seminary?” Father Atsumu flinches, but only barely, but only ever barely, when the demon strokes his cheek in a gentle caress, his fingertips warm against his cold skin. How could he be so warm, warm enough to thaw him completely?“Come to think of it, you only wanted to be here on account of your brother's dream that he never managed to accomplish. Do you miss him, Father?” The demon smiles again, slow and sweet, unfitting on his face. It's almost gentle, the smile on his face when he looks at the priest.

The priest feels conflicted about how to feel about his touch, but under his alb, he feels the throb of his heart, beating and beating not in fear but in anticipation for what the demon would do next, say next about him. What could he possibly reveal about him that he didn't know before? How could this wretched being know anything about him? “We all do. Don't we? He was a good man,” the demon says again with a sigh. “He passed away too young.”

“Don't come near me.” And then— and then, it hits him. The realization, the shocking revelation comes to the priest as he comes closer to the demon and smells his lavender scent. He looks down at his hands and he recognizes how the lines of a hand that he used to love turned into something he can no longer hold, a hand turned unlovable in the eyes of so many mortal beings. _Shin_. His name— his name has always been familiar, hasn't it? _Shin. Suke. Shinsuke._ In a litany of names, the demon's name was the only one he could recite backwards, committed to memory and taken to heart. _Shin. Chan. Shin-chan_. The demon's face, now unrecognizable, burnt and peeling away at the edges and yet somehow so deceptively beautiful, has been memorialized in a photograph at home, sitting on the mantel. _Shinsuke_. “Dear Lord. Dear Lord. Is that you?”

The demon unsheathes another flash of his wrist, his skin glowing under the warmth of Father Atsumu’s gaze. “Do you recognize me now, Father?” The priest shakes his head yes. _Yes yes yes of course_ Father Atsumu pulls the demon closer to him, suddenly careless, uncaring of who might be watching them at the moment, suddenly restless. _I've missed you I've missed you I've missed you more than anything in the world_ The demon wraps his arms around his neck and the priest cries into his shoulder, filled with missing, filled with longing. _Why have you only come back now?_ Pleased to see his beloved priest again, the demon uncurls his fingers to show him the golden band that symbolizes their marriage. Embossed on the ring was the date of their marriage, _11 26 18_ , and their names tied together in a chain of letters. A daisy chain of all the important things in the whole world. Only two years ago, the two have been bound in a perpetual union and even in his death, when they buried the demon after being involved in a fatal incident, the ring remained on his finger as he was being whisked away to his new abode, the flaming depths of hellfire.

The golden ring wrapped around his fatal finger symbolized his commitment to love the priest and no one else, a quiet devotion to the priest even when he could no longer recognize him. _Atsumu_. The demon has waited for this moment all his life and so did the priest. _Tsumu. Tsumu. Tsumu_. Even though he could not put his finger on what he was waiting for all this time, in his dreams he would lay in wait for the demon. _Shin. Shin. Shinsuke_. And in his lonely afternoons he would feel the demon's heat cradling him even if he was wide awake and sprinkling the cathedral with holy water. _Shinsuke. Shinsuke_. The name fills him like water. “Oh, how I've missed you, Father.” 

The demon dips his head low, his eternal love for the priest finally metamorphosing from a dream's eyespots into something in his reach, from his fever dreams into a gentle, tender reality. If the priest’s body was a vessel of love for everything and everyone in this wicked, white-walled world, the demon’s body was made of starlight, bound together by a hope that transcended all borders.


End file.
